Are you doing something cool and unique to promote your book?
Are you finding new ways to get your book in the hands of readers?
Please let me know!
Feel free to e-mail me at:
emdashery AT emdashery DOT com
Recently, I posted about talk radio host Hugh Hewitt soliciting video trailers for his book, A Mormon in the White House. This past month, bestselling author Dean Koontz did the same thing. He offered $5,000 to the producer of the best 30-second video for his upcoming book, The Good Guy.
The response? He received 65 videos. And he only had to pay for one. Not bad.
You can see all the videos here...
And here's one of the submissions...
There are always new and creative ways to promote a book. Author Harlan Coben sponsors five teams--the "Harlan Coben's Thrillers"--in his hometown of Ridgewood, N.J. Hopefully, the teams are using their wood to drive in runs, as well as sales of Coben's new book, The Woods.
Shock sells. Until, of course, it doesn't. Now that the Imus feeding frenzy is over, the collateral damage is being accounted for. In addition to his now endangered charity work and his wife's shelved tour for her book on environmental cleaning, authors have lost a sure-fire avenue for hawking their books...
In the last decade, Don Imus cleverly transformed his soapbox into a book-hawking bazaar second to none...
"The Imus impact was worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars to the book publishing industry," one seasoned book agent told me this week.
It's no wonder then that when the curtain fell on the I-man, it wasn't the nation's major book publishing houses or his author/guests pulling the strings. Big publishing stood by Imus throughout the week, even as far larger sponsors, including Proctor & Gamble and GM, ran for the exits. It was a pure business decision: there simply was no better place to sell a nonfiction book.
If you live by the sword making offensive comments, then you die by the sword making offensive comments. Maybe the rap industry will come to the aid of despondent authors looking for shock that still sells...
Wikipedia is the exploding online encylopedia--a friend to every researching writer and fourth grader preparing a social studies report. In the true, wiki fashion, Wikipedia allows anyone to add and edit content, so while the accuracy of its content is sometimes called into question, it certainly offers an astounding breadth of information.
Since most writers are familiar with the product, it seems that a few can't resist the temptations to post their own entries, specifically their own entries about themselves. What better way to aid your credibility than to say you're in the encylopedia!
Wikipedia has strong volunteer policing that sniffs out blatant attempts at PR, but it is possible to get an entry to stick. The Big Bad Book Blog has some tips on how to go about it.
The ultra-low barriers to entry into Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, have prompted many to ask: “Why not write an article about myself?” Whether or not this is a good idea depends on who you are. Most Wikipedia users don’t care to read about Joe from Boise’s affinity for black jeans and Springsteen’s early work. But what if the person in question were the author of a book—perhaps a book with a brand-new Web-savvy marketing campaign? Unfortunately, it takes more than authorship to get respect at Wikipedia. But it may still be able to give you a push.
Add this to your site |
